095 = Friday Fears and Disco Spheres

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem solving podcast, which is a bit like a donut

in that our solutions are enjoyable even though they have holes.

That's really good.

Yeah, right?

I'm shocked.

The reason I was laughing is Beck's like, oh, I forgot to write my intro, and we've literally got donuts on the table in front of us.

Yeah, you can pretty much think where you look, oh, oh, what do we got?

Yeah, you can always guess what's on the table.

Problem square is a bit like a microphone.

As in, it's right in front of me.

That other voice you can hear is one of your hosts, comedian, mathematician Matt Parker, who I would argue is a classic style donut because he is undecorated.

Correct.

Like an undecorated.

Well, I was going to say undecorative.

You don't like to wear.

I bet I am normcore.

You are very normcore.

I think I'm like dag core.

Yeah.

But you are popular, despite that.

Despite my best efforts.

Yep.

And sometimes when I ramble, you glaze over.

And my voice is Beck Hill.

I'm the other host.

I'm a comedian, writer, and I'm probably closer to a berlina bun because I'm jammy, kids like me, and everything I touch ends up sticky.

Those are all facts.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, on this episode.

I've analyzed just how bad Friday the 13th is.

I have a ball.

And we have any other baked goodness.

Things we get around to.

Hey, Matt!

Back!

How are you going?

I'm good, I'm good.

I went to the Orkney Islands.

They're a long way away.

Yes, they're off the coast of Scotland, if you're right.

Yeah, they are north of Scotland.

Now, I believe last time we recorded, you were talking about going off to that.

Yes.

And the weather report did not look nice.

No, it did not.

And you were working with cardboards.

I worked with cardboards.

So I'm here to report back.

Yes.

It was actually the weather above Heathrow that was our undoing initially.

Oh.

There was lightning above Heathrow, so they couldn't take off.

So our flight was delayed out of Heathrow, which meant that we missed our connection in Aberdeen.

Which is weird because planes are giant Faraday cages.

So if anything,

push into it.

Yeah.

So we landed, but we knew in advance, thinking ahead, Producer Nicole was on it.

Because there were people disembarking in Aberdeen who were like, oh, but now we've missed our connection.

And we're like, Producer Nicole sorted this out before we even got on the plane in Heathrow.

We'd already got ourselves removed from the other flight, got our bags rerouted so we could get them booked onto the flight the next morning.

Sometimes you just got to take the organization by the horns and deal with it.

Can I just say that Nicole, who's your YouTube channel producer?

So Nicole has to look after all your accommodation.

Ah, it's so much.

And all the other logistical stuff.

All my many demands.

But Nicole is also.

I heard an audible laugh from producer Lauren.

Nicole is also like, she achieves so much and she's so young.

She's

cool in all the ways I'm not.

She makes me feel very unsubstantial as a human.

That's not her intent.

She's making them feel

cookbatch.

So anyway, we had an unexpected night in Aberdeen, which is not really the update on the Orkney Islands.

We're not even there yet.

Yeah.

But we're like, what are we going to do in Aberdeen?

And Ellie Anne McDonald, a friend of mine, who had made it to Orkney, because she went earlier and drove, said, oh, her favourite bar in Aberdeen is called Krakatoa.

Nice.

And we're like, that's very funny.

It's a rock bar.

We're going to go.

Brilliant.

They had a poster for a cover band called the Ogre Tones.

Shrek-themed

covers of songs.

Very funny.

So I just thought you would need to know there's a cover band called The Ogre Tones who are Shrek-themed.

That is great.

Yeah.

I thought that would tickle your fancy.

Have I mentioned on this podcast before that one time we went to a, we spent New Year's Eve at the local pub because they had a Rod Stewart tribute act called God Stewart.

No.

That we only went because we thought that was so funny.

We were like, let's spend New Year's Eve there.

Yeah.

He was incredible.

God Stewart.

It was so good.

It was a really small bar with not big audience and it was perfect.

Amazing.

Oh, and then I went to the Orkney Islands and the weather was amazing.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Sorry.

That's all right.

I forgot how we got in there.

No, no, no.

I'm wearing the t-shirt.

This is the t-shirt from the installation.

So, the weather was great.

Yep, weather was great.

You guys made a bunch of stuff out of big carble boxes.

It was foggy in the mornings, but then the fog lifted

and the sun shone.

Lovely.

And it was amazing.

Are you doing a video about it?

Yes.

Oh, the video will not be out for a very long time.

It'll be probably either very late this year, like over the Christmas season, or it'll be early next year because we're going to open applications for the next round of mega grant.

Apply

for people who wish to request money to do a ridiculous maths thing.

Amazing.

And I come with the money I show up to and do stuff.

That's so cool.

Yeah.

So if people have ridiculous maths projects, that need to be, it's RPM.

It's a revolutionary grant.

It needs to be ridiculous,

needs to be public, needs to be maths.

And we provide either funding or organizing support.

By we, I mean myself and Keysteckles.

And then I will show up and get involved in the project and hopefully make a video about it.

And so that's where Number City

came about.

I can't wait to see.

The t-shirt's great.

Incredible.

So it did an amazing job.

You cannot purchase this t-shirt.

This is for those of us who stacked boxes in good sunny weather in the Orkney Islands.

It's a good logo.

Yeah.

And how have you been?

I've been great.

I was in Hastings this weekend, just gone for a friend's birthday.

And I think I want to move there.

Just

be fair.

This happens every time I go to Shaws.

You go anywhere and you're like, I'm Californian now.

Yeah, anytime the weather's nice, the amount of times I almost moved to Dundee just because I happened to be there.

And to be good when you were there.

Yeah.

You'd be living on the Orkney Islands if you'd come to Number City.

Yeah, yeah, I would have.

Yeah.

But it was a beautiful weekend and the housing is much more affordable than London.

That's true of almost everywhere else.

Almost everywhere.

Yeah.

But it had a very cool vibe and lots of coffee shops with like proper artisanal, lovely coffee, but very non-over-the-top servers.

People who were passionate, but at the same time, down-to-earth.

Love it.

One of those places where anytime you go in, people want to chat to you.

You're putting me right off the place now.

No, it was lovely.

It was really, really nice.

But I, so I was there for my friend's birthday, and she had like a daytime bit on the Saturday where everyone was down at the beach and she had a gold theme.

So everyone was wearing some sort of gold clothing.

And

I went up to the little promenade bit where they had a cafe to get myself a coffee.

And while I was there, I noticed that there was a bin with a big sort of fake shark on it.

And I thought, I'm going to get a funny photo with this.

I looked around and I saw there was a lady waiting, wearing gold collots,

a pink top with polka dots on it, bright pink sunglasses.

Were you not just looking into a mirror?

Basically,

I was like, oh, this person.

Oh, there's me.

And we sort of made eye contact and sort of smiled.

I was like, oh, yeah, they realize they're part of the same group.

And I went, oh, hey, you're here for Georgie's birthday.

And she went, no.

Who's Georgie?

And it turned out, no, she's just waiting for a friend.

This is how she normally dresses.

She was like, I was about to compliment your fashion sets.

And I was like, oh, okay.

So we had a lovely chat.

Then I collected my food.

And then remembered why I approached her the first.

I had to go back and say, sorry, can you take a bad photo?

Now we're friends.

Yes.

And so she took the photo and then I posted it on my stories on Instagram saying, you know, if anyone doubts my commitment to a bit,

I'm willing to ask a stranger to take this ridiculous photo for me.

Thank you, Emma, the neo-NATO nurse from St.

Leonard's.

So when I went to do it, I realized she'd done the same.

I was like, what a legend.

Just jumped right into your phone.

What a legend.

Anyway, the next day, I noticed that someone called Emma had started following me on Instagram.

I had a look and

realized it was her and I was like, how did you find me?

She said, one of my followers also follows you and saw your story.

So if there was any doubt that this place might be for me, the fact that I instantly made a friend and it turns out that we have followers.

One follower in common.

Yes.

If anyone in St.

Leonard's wants to sell me a house, no.

No, I just...

You went for a party and you found a party.

I went for a party.

I don't.

I mean, look, I don't know for sure.

I think the key would be going in winter.

Yeah, you need to go on the worst day of the year.

Yeah.

Then see how you're looking.

Then I'll know.

Then I'll know.

All right, should we get on with the episode?

Let's do an episode.

Our first problem is from Andy from Middlesbrough, UTB.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what that means.

University, Taybridge.

That actually sounds like a thing.

That sounds like a real thing.

Andy says, I recently read a fact.

Lots of quotes.

Double quotations on each side online that under the Gregorian calendar, the 13th of the month is slightly more likely to fall on a Friday than any other day of the week.

Is this true and why?

They then go on to say, assuming I have a child in the future and I have complete control over their birthday, what day should I choose to maximize the number of weekend birthdays they get?

I mean a different, different problem all of a sudden.

So Andy's got two problems.

One, Andy wants to know, is it a fact that the 13th of the month is more likely to be a Friday than any other day of the week?

Because Friday the 13th, famously unlucky date.

Yep.

While Andy was thinking about days and calendars, they came up with the unrelated question

of on what day should you have your birthday or your child's birthday, if you can be that accurate, such that over the course of their lifetime they get the maximum number of weekend birthdays.

Yes.

Yep.

Yes.

I guess they're both questions about:

are certain days of the week more or less likely on certain dates.

Yes.

And just to double check, the Gregorian calendar is the one we use.

We use the Gregorian calendar.

Okay, cool.

Because for a split second, I was like, wait.

Wait, your name's not Greg.

Yeah.

You can't use that calendar.

Well, it is a donut episode.

That's true.

Not that they sponsored us, but these ones happen to be from Greg's at least.

Oh, yeah.

Look at that.

That's the Greg Zorian calendar.

Greg Zorian calendar, yeah.

Would this change if I was born 100 years earlier or later?

I mean is it you or your child, Andy?

Come on.

Yeah, also, I don't know how old Andy is.

I know, there's so many unknowns.

So we're like guessing when is Andy going to have a child, but we don't know how old Andy is.

It's a mess.

Well, let's still, Andy, great problem.

But let's start with the first one.

Okay.

Because I feel like this is one we can answer.

And because Andy said this was a fact online, that the 13th of the month is more likely to be a Friday, I shouldn't try and solve this problem by just searching online.

Yeah.

He's already said that well may have been poisoned.

Mm-hmm.

And so I was like, you know what?

I'm going to do the whole thing without looking online at all.

I'm going to knock together some terrible Python code.

Okay.

It's going to give me what day of the week every day is.

And then I'll just tally them up and see which is the most likely.

Okay.

So the Gregorian calendar, as you said, is the one we use at the moment.

And the only way it differs from what we previously had, the Julian calendar, is where we put leap years.

Ah.

So, leap years.

Wow.

So,

Gregor.

Yeah, Pope Greg.

Pope Gregory.

Is it Pope Gregory?

I love that there was a Pope Greg.

That's very funny to me.

Pope Greg didn't do the maths.

I'm Pope Greg.

They got some Italian guy to do it for him, whose name I've forgotten.

Wow.

But then they were like, that's my calendar.

So all the calendars are named after this guy.

And he did nothing.

Nothing.

Because Julian calendar before that was

Julius Caesar, yeah.

Yeah.

So it was even worse before.

Like Julius Caesar tided it up nice and neat.

Yes.

And they put in a leap day every four years.

Julius did.

Yes.

So what did Gregor do?

I know it's Gregory, but I find Gregor funnier.

Gregor is funnier.

So Gregor.

The time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun is ever so slightly longer than 365 days.

Yes.

Well, it's 365 days and about a quarter.

Yeah.

Which means if you only have 365 days in your calendar, the seasons, which are fixed to a point in the orbit, drift away from the dates at the rate of one day every four years.

Yeah.

Roughly.

Because before then, they would add in festivals based on whoever was elected in the government at the time.

But then you could deliberately shorten or extend your term or your opponent's term by deciding when you do or don't add days.

And so leaving it to a committee to decide when to adjust the calendar on the fly, different every year, terrible idea.

Yeah, but my goodness, would the calendar sales been good?

Sales would have been great.

You would have relied on them so much.

You'd need like immediately, your old calendar is worthless because you have no idea what's going to happen next year.

The Romans are very good at their holidays, so good points to them.

Julius is like, no, no, no, no, no.

We're just going to routinely put in one day every

four years, no negotiation.

Yep.

Which is great, except

that that's slightly too much.

Because it's not 365.25 days in the orbit, which would be exactly a quarter.

So one every four years would be spot on.

It's 365.242.

So now we're overshooting.

We're overshooting.

Yeah.

So we're overshooting by a minuscule amount, but it was adding up.

Yeah.

So by the time the UK changed,

the UK dragged its feet a bit.

By the time it changed, we were out by like 11 days drift.

Okay.

In like thousands, like a thousand and a half years, whatever it was.

Yep.

So it was in the 1700s when the UK changed.

So the amount we were off was approximately three days every 400 years

as a neat ratio.

And so Pope Greg was like Pope Gregor.

Pogo.

Pogo.

They called him the Pogo.

Yeah.

The Pogizzle said, look,

Pog.

The Poggers said, wouldn't it be Pog if

we

had a systematic way to take out three days every 400 years?

Which is to say, we just have to pick three leap years and not leap.

Oh, okay.

So they're like, okay, simple system.

Here's what we'll do.

We will no longer have a leap year because leap years are every multiple of four, just to make life easy.

We will no longer do that if it's also a multiple of 100.

So in the year 1700, in the year 1800, in the year 1900, we won't do the leap year.

So there'll be a run of eight years with a leap year instead of four.

But that means we're going to take out too many.

So if it's a multiple of 400 as well, we put it back in again.

Oh, wow.

So when it was the

2000, we took it out, but then we put it back.

Okay.

So 2000 shouldn't have been a leap year because it's on the century.

But it was a leap year because it was a 400

one.

So I'm a little sad that I never in my lifetime got to experience a skipped leap year.

Unless I live to be 120.

You could.

I could.

It was kind of fun to see the rollover of the Millennium.

I'm not, I'm not, I think net, I'm pretty happy.

You're not looking forward to Zed 2K,

but I would have loved to have seen a skipped leap year.

Anyway, great system.

I do realize that Y3K would have made more sense, but no,

increment the letter.

Anyway, which is a long way to say that the number of days in the year alters and so you don't always have

the same

dates being well for a start also i just realized that i went to year 3000

not not 2100.

sorry would you like to revise your joke no keep it all in the people need to know the truth people need to know the process yeah

Other podcasts just give you the final joke.

No, we're better than that.

No, here you see the whole sausage yeah i think that's what the phrase is

show them the whole sausage they say

how did a problem square get cancelled

so so we're getting mildly ahead of ourselves because we'll take one back later we'll take one back here's the thing a year

doesn't have a multiple of seven days.

It's got 365 or 366 days, neither of which which are multiple of seven.

Which means if one year starts, let's say on a Monday, the next year won't also start on a Monday.

Yeah.

It'll start on a Tuesday.

Or if there's a leap year, it'll start on a Wednesday.

It goes forward one or two, depending on if it's a leap year or not.

If

our orbit had been such that, or we'd picked our week to be a length such that one was a multiple or the other,

every year the same date would be the same day.

Yes.

And I like it in the years when February does have 28 days, which is a multiple of seven.

It means February and March both have the same days on the same dates, which can get a little confusing, but I find it very pleasing.

In that case, like,

you know, you just look at all the 13ths of the year and see if they're Fridays or not, because they're always the same.

But it changes.

And the way it changes year on year is affected by if there's leap years or not, which is why we care about the Gregorian calendar in the first place.

The wonderful thing about the Gregorian calendar is after 400 years,

once you've taken out your three and left your extra one in, there is a total of 146,097 days, which is a multiple of seven.

So it perfectly lines up.

So you can decide where you stop or start, but any 400-year window will perfectly repeat

in the future.

Okay.

In terms of dates and days.

Yep.

Because the leap years come and go in a slightly weird way across 400 years.

But if your 400-year window starts on a Monday, the next 400 years will start on a Monday and everything will be identical.

So you could just have one giant calendar, which is

400 years long.

Equal amount of chance that it's going to be on the Friday or not.

What it means is within that 400-year window of those 146,097 days, you look at all the 13ths.

of all the months and see how many of them are Fridays and how many of them are the other days.

But if it's a multiple of seven, does that not mean that all no, because your Friday, your 13ths are weirdly spaced because the months are different lengths.

Yep, yep, yep.

Okay, cool.

I'm with you.

Yep.

But what it means is once you've analyzed those 400 years, you're done.

Yeah.

So I did that.

Very straightforward.

I looked at every date by which I mean day of the month from 1 to 31.

I actually ignored 29 and up because of the different length months, you get weird results.

Okay.

But every month has one to 28.

So those are nice, neat results.

And then I analyzed what day of the week they fall on in terms of Sunday through Saturday.

I looked at the 13th of the months, and not all days of the week are equally likely.

And the one that happens the most is Friday.

Huh.

So it's absolutely true.

Across that time, there are 688 Friday the 13ths, and that's the biggest number.

There are

687 Sundays and Wednesdays, 685 Mondays and Tuesdays, and there are 684 Thursdays and Saturdays.

So the range is actually from 684 to 688.

It's a tiny difference between what's more likely.

So you're calculating of all the Fridays, they're more likely to occur on the 13th.

No,

of all the 13ths, they're more likely to be Fridays.

Right.

So if you woke up and you're like, oh, what date is it?

And they're like, it's the 13th of the month.

It's slightly more likely it's a Friday than any other day of the week.

But the other ones you're looking up were...

You had like a second and third for like Wednesdays.

Yeah, but

it's not more Fridays by much.

It's barely more Fridays.

So if all days were equally likely, any given 13th of the month, so you don't know what year it is, you know what month it is, you just know it's the 13th of whatever month.

Yeah.

And you're like, I wonder what day of the week it is.

If it was fair, it would be a one in seven chance it's a Friday.

Yeah.

Because they're all the same.

And that's 17.29%.

That's the seventh.

Yeah.

It's actually slightly more likely to be a Friday than any other day.

But it's so tiny.

A random 13th of the month is, instead of being 14.29%

a Friday, it's actually 14.33.

Okay.

Barely more likely.

Right.

Like a tiny amount more.

Instead of being one in seven, it's one in six point nine eight.

It's such a tiny.

It's across the entire Gregorian 400-year cycle, there are like two more than you'd expect.

So after Friday, what's the next day that is more likely to be a 13th?

The second second most likely is a tie between

Sunday and Wednesday.

And there's only one fewer of each of them in a 400-year cycle compared to Fridays.

Yeah.

It's so snug.

Like, there's barely any difference.

It's just that weird, when we skip those three leap years, it slightly jitters

some days out of whack.

Yeah.

And it turns out it slightly bumps up Friday,

marginally bumps up, what did I say, Sundays and Wednesdays, and then you've got fewer Tuesdays, Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays than you'd expect.

But by such a tiny, tiny amount, it's minuscule.

And there's no other date in the month, day of the week matchup that's more likely.

In fact, every single day of the month from 1 through 28 has the same distribution of one day that's slightly more likely,

and then two below that, two below that, two below that.

It's the same distribution for every single day of the month.

Now, the only other issue is this only matters if

you happen to live across the skipping a leap year.

Because unless

you are there, alive for missing a leap year

our experiences, your lifetime and mine, will be identical to if we were following the Julian calendar because it's only different three times every 400 years.

Yeah.

So actually for all purposes for our lifetimes,

it's the Julian calendar or the leap, you know, we will never experience not a leap year every four years.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, well, what happens for that?

So I looked at four years.

Four years is not a multiple of seven.

So you don't get this need, instead of just needing 400,

you don't get the same thing for for just needing four.

You've actually got to cycle through all of them.

It repeats every 28 years.

Right.

And so across 28 years,

every day is equally likely on every date.

Yeah.

So actually, for our lifetimes,

all 13ths are equally likely to be any day of the week.

So actually, for us, it doesn't matter, which is why it's interesting that Andy did say, would it change 100 years from now?

And the answer is yes.

Yeah.

If you look at time scales beyond a human lifetime, or you happen to live across one of the skipped leaped years, it'll be mildly different.

There are slightly more Fridays.

But

if you don't live across one of those, it's all equally likely.

So actually,

while technically true on a scale beyond human life, yes.

For our lives, no.

What if

the 29th that would have been the leap year that we'll skip?

Yep.

Hang on.

We skip not having a leap year.

Is that right?

Oh, my brain.

We had a leap year in 2000.

We did, yes.

But the next, for 2100,

there will not be a leap year.

Yep.

So if there had been a leap year in 2100 and that was the 29th was on a Friday, does that change stuff?

No.

Okay.

It's just the weird.

The 13ths of the month don't come at regular intervals.

Yeah.

It's just the luck of the draw of where it all falls.

And it falls slightly differently after we skip a leap than before.

What's that calendar where everything's like equally distributed and it's actually way easier?

And then you get like two extra days to get away from it.

Oh, there's a bunch like that.

Yeah.

We should definitely have like 13 months.

This is my opinion.

We should have 13 months, 28 days long each.

Yep.

Everything lines up neatly.

They're an even number of weeks, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm undecided what you do when you need to put in an extra one or two days.

No, I think you definitely put them in at New Year.

So every year you get a free day on New Year, which is the zeroth day of January, let's say.

Love it.

And sometimes you get double zero if it's a leap year.

Is there any type of calendar where we don't know?

No, because the Earth's orbit isn't an even number of Earth spins.

Got it.

The universe has given us a mismatch and we just got to deal with it.

Unless it's a calendar where we don't repeat it.

Unless, or we don't.

So we just invent a new mask.

It's a new day every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But then the question would be, and I'm undecided, would you have your bonus one or two days?

Would they be non-weekdays?

Would they be like Flerbs Day and Zurbs Day or something?

Or would you still roll through the days of the week, but then you're going to offset the whole next year would be different.

So you won't have like every month starting on a

Sunday or something.

I think that's good because then every seven years, like everybody gets their birthday on a weekend, not not on a weekend.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so we still keep them their weekdays, and that means the days of the week still drift around compared to the months to keep it interesting.

Love it.

Finally, I thought I'd answer the birthday weekend question.

We didn't get a lot of details around that.

It depends how long you live for, and depends when you're born.

So, I used me.

Yep.

I was born at the end of 1980.

So, I was like, you know what?

Let's take 1981 as a start year.

And I looked up my life expectancy.

I'm currently alive.

And I've made it all the way to 43.

And I'm male.

I have a life expectancy of 84 years currently.

84 is also good because it's a multiple of 28.

So everything lines up so nicely.

And so I can now say, using me as an example, what percentage of your birthdays will be on a weekend?

A mere 27.4% of the time my birthday would be on the weekend.

Okay.

Which is basically two sevenths so what did you say your birthday was you're the second of no uh fourth of november fourth of november uh oh wow you've got the maximum number

you're 29.76 percent of the time yeah baby

most of us chumps get three sevenths people born the 29th of feb who can choose

to be on a weekend you can choose between the 28th

and the 1st.

You can actually bump it to the one that's on the weekend.

And that gives you more weekend birthdays.

So actually, instead of having the roughly 28%, 28.5%, two-sevenths.

And by weekend, you're going to Saturday, Sunday.

Saturday, Sunday.

Yeah.

53.6% of the time.

And so, Andy, this is my answer.

Your child can be born on the 29th of Feb, over half their birthdays will be weekend birthdays.

Wow.

If you include Friday.

And people born on the 29th of Feb can choose between the 28th of Feb and the 1st of March on non-leb years.

Well, I'm going to give that a Friday the 3rd dink.

Oh, what?

I'd like to give it back.

But once again, Andy, if you would like to confirm that you are happy with that answer.

Make sure I answered all the aspects of your problem.

And please take it back to the university of talking butts.

Let us know what the professors have said.

Our next problem came in from Beck phoning me.

Yes.

With a problem that you and your friend Georgie, I believe, were having.

Yeah.

So I was on the train to Hastings for Georgie's 40th.

Oh, yes.

And then I got this voice note.

Hello.

This is such a random one, but

I've come across a bit of a creative dilemma I guess.

So basically, spoiler alert, I am making a giant disco ball costume for myself so that every single night since Sunday this week I have been papier-macheing a 36-inch balloon and I did the pop of the balloon today and it's okay, it's just not quite as solid as I thought.

My issue is that I need to cut a hole in the other end and I don't know how to do that and then I need to cover it in these disco ball stickers I've got.

There's one logistical thing I'm not sure about.

So I went round to Georgie's place when I arrived in Hastings to see what her craft dilemma was.

Yeah.

And

she had this huge paper mache

ball.

I believe it was almost a meter across.

That was the vision.

Yes.

Yeah.

Very, very big.

But it had lost some structural integrity.

Yeah, the balloon was doing a lot of support work.

Yes.

So once the balloon was gone, and especially having a hole in the top and a hole in the bottom so Georgie could wear it, Yep.

We were then at risk of it turning into a sort of smushed sphere.

A profit spheroid.

That was one thing.

And also she had these rectangular gold tiles that she had actually mathematically worked out how many she needed and it was pretty much spot on.

That's the power of maths.

But she also realized looking at it, oh, hang on.

How do you put a rectangle on a sphere?

That old chestnut.

So I said, I'll tell you what, I'm just going to call my friend Matt.

I know someone who's had experience with disco balls.

Correct.

And get his advice.

So applying the stickers, because I looked into this when I did, I made these geometric disco balls a couple years ago.

And I looked into how regular disco balls are made because arranging squares on a sphere or rectangles is not super straightforward.

And it turns out, best I can tell, people who make disco balls professionally kind of just put a bunch around the equator.

Yeah.

And you've got gaps between them.

If you ever look real close at a disco ball, there are some gaps.

You do the best you can to like even out the gaps.

And then you just do rows going up and down from that and hope for the best at the poles.

Yeah.

And that's kind of it.

So I then said, if I was you, I would put the top and bottom lines of latitude on where the holes are.

And then do a thing where you work out how many rows are going to fit and then put in the middle one first.

And then the middle ones are what's left and kind of fill in all the rows yeah best you can

but given in this one you're going to have effectively a neckline maybe not was it set just under it was meant to go under her arms yeah but with the addition of the tiles this is only going to make the structural integrity worse so i propose having a smaller hole just at the other end of your head yep and then some of the weight will sit on your shoulders and you can also have your hands on the inside to provide some of that integrity hands on the inside great

Then you and Georgie said some promising things about gaffer tape.

Well, I was like, I didn't hear about it.

Georgie wanted to know if you could use gaffer tape, which I vetoed because gaffer tape is,

while strong, famously

heavy and not solid.

Oh, right.

Like, unless you were to do like a strap, so you tape from the inside hole to the other, to essentially make a tube.

Oh, a strap, yes.

That can...

apply a lift to the bottom of it to stop it from stretching out.

Yep.

I tried to describe making, I mean ribs effectively, like I tried to describe it as like a crescent moon

bit of cardboard or the outside of a circle perpendicular to the surface, the interior surface of the sphere

to provide some up and down strength so the whole thing wouldn't just sag.

So and then I didn't hear from you again.

And I messaged you the day after the party.

Yes.

Say, hey, how'd it go?

And you said, save it for the podcast, buddy.

Well, I was inspired.

I think I was still on the phone to you when I realized this.

I spotted that Georgie had one of those workout hula hoops, which is far too large for what she had.

So I went on a hula hoop hunt.

Oh yeah.

The old hula hunt.

And found some hula hoops.

I got one that was the size of the circle

and two smaller ones.

I could have got more, but I still wasn't sure how this was going to work.

But I

managed to sort of squeeze the hoop small enough without it breaking or snapping.

I know sometimes you can take them apart, these ones you couldn't, in through the hole that Georgie had already done.

What I wanted to do was tape them all nice and strongly before cutting the hole at the other side

so that it was already stuck in the right place.

Hoop in a bottle problem.

Yeah.

So I managed to get the large hoop in.

I had that around the equator.

Nice.

And attached the smaller hoops as like the Arctic and Antarctic.

Yeah, where they go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Had I had more time, would it be nice to have some cross sections as well?

I was big on the cross sections.

Yeah, and I do love a cross-section.

At a minimum, having a rigid equator is going to keep it from prolating right in, from squeezing right down.

Exactly.

And it did.

So that worked really, really nicely.

It also meant that when I realized and thought, yeah, actually, let's do a smaller hole on the top, the inner hoops gave you something to hold on to.

Just to sort of rest your fingers on or whatever.

So we did that.

And then I tiled it.

I actually went and tiled from the center center and then just worked from the center upwards and downwards.

Okay.

And Georgie had shown me a video of someone who had done a similar thing that had given her the inspiration to do this.

However, the other person had like covered it in a sort of sticky, I don't know what it was, it was the same sort of tiles or whatever, but it was so well covered that it was almost too spherical to look

to look like a disco tilt.

Oh, you need that squary mirror effect.

Because the point of a disco ball is to project discrete dots of light as it's spinning in the disco tech yeah you don't want it to be too small you don't just want like generic reflections yeah it would be so tiny it looks like you want little beads yeah so you need discrete little mirrors yeah

so rather than sort of cutting down these tiles i kept them as like full rectangles and just made a point of having the gaps in i realized the gaps that make it feel like a disco ball that's deep and i sat there and listened to podcasts while i stuck on tiles for several hours.

Yeah, sounds about right.

Thankfully, there was a time.

You're a good friend, but there was moments where I was like, some of these gaps are too big and I need to stick some stuff in between them.

And eventually had to go, do you know what?

This will be fine.

Enough is enough.

I think just the fact that you're a giant disco ball is going to be enough.

There's plenty.

She was very grateful, very lovely.

I was happy because quite often my friends will do things for me that I think, I could never repay you with this.

This is not how I work.

Like those are the what you have done for me is not something that I'm good at.

I can reciprocate, yeah.

Yeah.

So it was really nice to be asked to do a thing where I was like, yes.

I would love to.

This is my time to shine.

I can absolutely do that.

Yeah.

It's really, really nice.

So I will show you.

Can I see a picture?

You can see a picture.

And can I know if it survived the entire night?

It did survive the entire night.

The next day it looked a little sad.

I don't know what happened to it afterwards.

Harsh daylight.

So I've I've just sent you a picture and a video.

I actually did fill in some more of the gaps towards the top.

Ah, you got it in the room reflecting the sunlight.

So

that's how I did it.

Great.

It's an honor that you phoned me and then did zero of the things I mentioned.

No, that's not true.

You inspired me.

I feel like I was part of the process.

Yes.

Other sounding board.

So I think you've solved the problem.

But this is not my problem to ding.

Hold on.

I got another voice note from Georgie.

Georgie has sent in her own ding.

We can play that in now.

Ding

or ding

ding.

I think that counts as a

successful dinged problem.

Yeah, I think so.

Well done.

I don't think she was coerced at all.

No, it sounded like she was dinging of her own free will.

Yes.

If anyone else wants to make a disco ball costume, send us in your photos.

Feels unlikely, but why not?

Yeah.

Job done.

Well done.

Thanks.

All-round, great outfit.

Now let's move to St.

Leonard's.

And we've reached the point in the show where we

do any other bakeriness.

This is going to be...

Yeah, it works.

This is feedback that we're seeing.

Listeners said.

Yes.

We got a couple of things in.

People enjoyed the various sized meals.

I mean, we're still enjoying the various size kneels.

Yes.

We had to rank lots of people named Neil by giving them distinguishing sizes.

Yeah.

And we just basically spent half an hour laughing at putting different descriptions of different sized nils.

Yeah, nano-neal.

Nano-neal.

Medium Neil.

Yeah.

Extendo-Neal.

Sizable Neil.

Someone was upset.

We didn't include Peren Neil.

Perenn Neil.

So S-A-B

on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Thank you for sharing.

We also heard from Larry, which is at la underscore emo, replying to point out an issue with the coin that I gave you, Matt.

Yes,

yes.

They've said, for your information, it's not a Native American on the coin, but the goddess Liberty wearing a Native American headdress.

The designer used his daughter as the basis of Liberty's face.

Oh.

So all I can say is I'm very sorry that I I

took it at face value.

Well done.

Styled that out.

And just like the doughnuts on the table, we're almost gone.

But not completely.

So before we leave, we want to thank, first of all, everyone listening.

All of you.

If you weren't listening,

we'd just be regular friends hanging out.

We probably wouldn't do that.

Because we have worked with our friends.

We're not that organized yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So thank you.

Thank you for enabling our friendship.

Yes, exactly.

But we also do want to thank everyone who makes this possible financially.

So we want to thank our wonderful Patreon supporters and each episode we choose three at random to thank by mispronouncing their names.

And on this episode we would like to thank Carl Lowfgren.

Bye-bye, Rose and Berg.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I looked at it.

I was like, I bet Beg's going to say bye-bye.

Yep, you're correct.

Bib E.

Rose

Berg.

Kennen.

Keenanen.

I think you need to pronounce the...

It's pronounced N, the K-Silent.

Oh, right.

Sorry.

It's just N.

Yep.

What's your name?

N.

How's that spelled?

It's got four letters in it.

Guess which ones?

Guess which ones?

Thank you very much for supporting us and making this possible so that everyone else can listen.

Thank you very much to my co-host, Matt Parker, who is

sweet and a little twisted.

I already made that chat.

A little loopy.

Sweet and a little twisted, like a yum yum.

Oh.

And to the incredible Lauren Armstrong Carter, who is much more like Anna Claire.

Oh.

In that.

Fancy.

she's better than us.

Yep, no follow-on questions.

Uh, bye.

Oh, no, I'm back here.

Bye.

I'll go first this time.

D four.

Uh

miss.

Ah, I thought I had it

A ten

Miss

The Suspense.